Tame The Web

This one time I had a Professor tell me you have to start something new at least once a month. Her idea was that we are these “perpetual discovery engines” Apply, apply, apply was a core tenet. The greatest ideas she believed came from remixing. School was this ultimate test of your ability to create.

School, she felt, should be a complete playground where you push yourself to work within the confines of; to be creative in spite of everything, everyone may ever throw at you. I always liked that idea. Working from the inside out always seemed to be where the most effective change comes from anyway. Sure, a new pair of Nikes makes you feel fast -when you’re in Kindergarten. Later you learn where real speed comes from: years of training that make you look like an overnight success.

Anybody can be creative outside of their organization but can you be creative within those confines?

TTW: Lee




It’s total cheese to say: here’s your assignment if you choose to accept it. But, I kinda just did. Below you will visit many links. As you pay a visit, pretend you are stressed-out, Infectious Disease Researcher under a serious time constraint to stop a virulent Adenovirus strain. And you’ve been so busy over the years. So busy you’ve never slowed down to understand what those terms mean. You want an obscure article let’s say. One that could crack your case to stop this killer cold. And you just want to get on with, you know, your research stuff.*

After visiting those links, what would make it easier for you; what would make it faster; what would enrich the experience; was there any help; could you easily speak with a real, live librarian; what fatigued you; what was only clear if you’re a librarian? What would you call “Getting at the stuff that my local library doesn’t have so I can crank out my own research”?

What would you call it and should we be charging fees? Should we absorb a reasonable amount of the cost?

InterLibrary Loan
http://library.calvin.edu/services/ill
Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
http://tinyurl.com/3qdhot
Interlibrary loan services (ILL) and alternative delivery services
http://www.ub.uni-erlangen.de/Fernleihe/index-en.shtml
Interlibrary Borrowing Service
http://libraries.mit.edu/ordering/ilb.html
and
http://libraries.mit.edu/docs/index.html

Tired yet? Hang in there. It’s called link fatigue. It’s also among the reasons why so many web surfers scan information -as opposed to read all the information we put on web pages.
Document Delivery Service
http://ndsl.lib.state.nd.us/DocumentDelivery.html
IU Document Delivery Service
http://www.libraries.iub.edu/index.php?pageId=54
Document Delivery Services
http://www.lindahall.org/services/document_delivery/
Document Delivery Services
http://library.mskcc.org/scripts/portal/services/services1.pl
Integrated Document Delivery
http://www.usc.edu/libraries/services/idd/interlibrary_loan/

Focus now my tired, diseased researcher; I know you’re getting tired (maybe); this is where we really start to see some different pieces.
7-FAST On-Campus Document Delivery Service
http://www.lib.umich.edu/7fast/
British Library Research Pack
http://tinyurl.com/45awja
Loansome Doc
http://tinyurl.com/54cmw5
Interlibrary Loan Forms
http://library.uncg.edu/depts/ill/illforms.asp
and check these two out for sure:
Ordering Full text - Document Delivery
http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/docorder.html
Document Delivery Services (DDS)
http://www.lib.ipfw.edu/dds.html
Document Services
http://libraries.mit.edu/docs/index.html

Don’t we all just want to get materials that we need? Remember: what would the user call it.
Getting Materials:
http://www.lib.fsu.edu/services#materials
http://www.lib.fsu.edu/services/materials/feds

So, what would you call this service we provide my highly stressed-out, Infectious Disease Researcher?

TTW Contributor: Lee Leblanc

*based on a true story -changed to protect anonymity. It’s in the vault.

What about the work your department does -any way to make it easier? Would you be willing to invest in: technology or training or people? Who could make it happen for you; or can anything be outsourced or automated? Below, a few friends from library land respond to various questions -real and virtual friends.
—

You know the deal. “stuff” that wastes time…that’s kind of tough to put my mind around at the moment. 3 things, one sentence. Riiiiight. This is a whole can of worms.

I think the largest overall problem for me is transparency of tools. Formatting Word documents for signage/documentation is a nightmare in most situations. Hand-feeding information into a local knowledge database that no one uses. Overlap of two separate event/calendar systems that must be managed manually since two unfriendly systems are used.

These are difficult problems to change because of institutional implementation. An institution becomes invested into a software system that may not be the best tool for the job, it results in staff doing all of the tweaking to make that tool create a product to fit in the desired box. Why can’t we have tools that simply make the product fit in the box? There should never be a moment of “how do I trick Word into doing xxxx and then save to PDF because it cannot natively print the document as laid out?”

Another example, our subject librarians have our reference students check book lists from publishers against our catalog and our union catalog to determine what to add to the collection. Why isn’t the publisher (who charges outrageous prices anyway) analyzing our collection and telling us from the beginning what we don’t have? Send us brochures and offers customized to our collection. It really wouldn’t be that difficult.

Damned inefficiency. That’s when I get frustrated and waste an hour or two on Facebook instead. :-)”
—

I do so much different work... its hard to say what would make it easier.Short list:
better mechanisms for finding books (catalog sucks)
less silos of information to explain to people
better communication methods within and between departments so that I wouldn’t have to wander around or call 5 people to get an answer about something
I don’ t think those are the answers you are looking for, but that’s what I could think of. There are things that I might like, that might help me work better in certain cases- better software, better equipment, etc. But the main difficulties I feel I face during the day have to to with people and the general sad state of library search and discovery tools.
Do I feel there are parts of my job that could be outsourced to someone? Not really, but that’s because I feel that I am indispensable and nobody does work as well as me
—

For me, work would be easier if I was paired with some inspiring, collaborative individuals who sought out new and exciting changes. The ability to work with such a team would be an excellent mentoring opportunity for a young professional like myself and a motivational push to do excellent at whatever I pursue. In this case, technology wouldn’t solve much and neither would training - I think it may just be happenstance that puts all these all-star individuals in one group. As for outsourcing, I believe that some of the doldrums that arise from basic computer maintenance could be delegated to some willing and able computer science student workers - whether this is truly outsourcing is your call to make.

—

1. Administrative staff who understand support roles and needs like making labels, filing mail, creating basic data entry spreadsheets, confirming meetings, etc. Do you really want to this to be what a librarian gets paid to do?
2. People to provide faculty development regarding teaching info lit, especially web-based instruction. Marketing person.
3. Appropriate furniture & equipment: need chairs & tables in many places for many uses.
4. Leadership. Mine, someone else’s - but someone please lead.
There are tons of technology things I would like, too…. but mostly some creative folks with great attitudes that can ‘make it so’.
—

I found myself having the official role of minute taker at meetings of the Collection Development Team. My role really had to do with the faculty having a person to record their thoughts—an activity which added value to their ideas by committing them to writing, giving their ideas coherence and distributing them to others. This task asserted their superiority to library assistants (people with ideas vs. people who just record the ideas of others). In general, tasks where staff service librarians ought to be discouraged. Tasks which get the work done at the direction of a librarian are, of course, good management.

I have seen system administrators bypass system upgrades that would be helpful to the staff. Some libraries only do whole number system upgrades by policy even if the content of some of the other upgrades would be helpful to staff. If there are more rapid upgrades, then the staff has to roll with the punches more and learn on the fly. On the issues of other technologies (chat, intranet, etc.), these technologies ought to be offered to staff/librarians as a means to connect to patrons, but should be an option of the staff/librarian. Technology should be available to serve patrons which is congruent with the communication style of the patrons and the staff/librarians.

Public services done by private companies takes public money and puts it in the pockets of private companies. If the private firm is able to do the work and make a profit, then the public library ought to hire people and save the taxpayer the cost of the private firm’s profit. It is also a good that a town or county hire its own citizens: have the community serve the community.
—

3 things:
1. Having a mentor makes my work easier, definitely!
2. If any technology helps me in doing my work faster and more efficient, I will buy it!
3. Some sort of training to minimize learning time.
Parts of my work that can be outsourced are work that are kind of mechanical and repetitive, like inserting grades and downloading assignments.
Overall, anything to optimally use my TIME, I will definitely consider it.
—

I think the relationship between publishers and libraries is far too complex to be described in simple and dismissive terms. You might ask why we have to subscribe to Elsevier journals–the answer is that the tenure mill and the promotion track demand publication in established, peer-reviewed, high impact journals. We have to buy the journals our faculty have to publish in, like it or not. It would be great if we, the librarians, could get the academic establishment on board with our open access initiatives and it’s good to see that there is some progress in that direction. Oh, there goes that pushing for change in an incremental system again….

If you knew how much time my colleagues in the state university system spend on negotiations with Elsevier, holding their feet to the fire for the good of the entire SUS, you would thank them, and not think of them as partners in crime.
—

What about you? Have you made any lists for stuff you want to change, lately?

TTW Contributor: Lee LeBlanc

Dr. Branin said he’d be posting the powerpoint soon on his own site; if he allows for a copy to be posted here I’ll do that too. –From FLA 2008 Conference.

TTW Contributor: Lee LeBlanc

“…Backchannel is the product of countless hours of research conducted by Kokernak, some of which came from starting up and running a small media-buying operation … and some from long stretches buried in the stacks of the Harvard University library. (He once took a low-paying job there, Kokernak says, to gain unfettered access.)…”

Tying together two ideas:
-cultivating talent by staying fresh and open,
-recognizing the reasons people come to libraries varies everyday and the reasons for working in libraries is wide ranging.

TTW Contributor: Lee LeBlanc

Note: we also get the results from the social media survey. Open all the links at once: http://linkbun.ch/52i -thanks infodoodads.com

Sharing PDFs
At times, I want to share parts of an article (like with you.) So I tested an online tool to extract an abstract from the article I just read. Here’s that abstract:

“…The main hypothesis we examine is whether heavier users of IT are more productive, and if heavier users of IT are indeed more productive, how does this increase in productivity manifest itself? Our results suggest that, controlling for other factors, the size of an individual’s internal email network is more highly correlated with revenues generated by that individual than age, experience or education. … Additionally, even after accounting for the individual’s number of unique contacts within the firm, the social network measure of “betweenness” is also highly correlated with revenues. We attribute the strength of these results to the fine grain detail of the data on this form of task-based white collar work.”
–From http://spirit.tau.ac.il/public/gandal/Information.pdf

and rather than force you to load Adobe Acrobat Reader I can re-direct you to another tool. pdfmenot.com allows me to quickly let you load a presentation on the paper above. If you ever sent anyone a large PDF they will thank you for using this. Here’s that presentation.
http://pdfmenot.com/view/http://www.idei.fr/doc/conf/sic/papers_2005/gandal_slidesl.pdf

Another way I collect information is to save the slides or pages I specifically want. In a 78-page PDF it’s doubtful I want all 78-pages. Sometimes I actually like to hand colleagues a hard copy of a specific section. Trolling through the PDF to print only the pages I want is time consuming. Nor do I want my colleagues to have to find the pages I want them to see if I email it. I just hack the PDF down. Using this app you can modify your PDF for sharing. Takes seconds. Saves time.

The folks over at infodoodads turn you on to some pretty cool stuff too. Laurie did this presentation. Then put it online. Pretty slick. Here’s the link to Issuu and the presentation:
http://tinyurl.com/2mu9db

A lot of my tricks I’ve picked up from other bloggers but most recently I’m thankful to http://www.friedbeef.com/about/ (I would have called it friedveggies since I’m one of those veg-heads.)

Delicious
I also bookmark like mad. Do you get regular links via your delicious account? “What’s that!?! Not another thing to check,” you say. Settle down now; it’s just links. If you’re in my network I can add you every time I bookmark something I think you would like. You can practice reciprocity by sharing with me. Here’s how to do it:

|links for you| –look for this up near the top of your delicious page.

then add me formally to your delicious network by searching for iblee or simply typing the tag:
for:laurenpressley
(I chose Lauren as an example because she shared a cool article on Buddhism with me.)

Social Media
A few weeks back we looked at the question, “How many Social Media Sites do you use online?” Of course, right away I was asked to define it. I’m not big on giving definitive definitions for things I didn’t create. (Not that I’ve created anything worth talking about or defining!) So, yeah, I googled it. I liked Robert Scoble’s take: Social Media. A large part of this media revolves around participation. Yes, participation is in decline in some ways. Read Bowling Alone yet? Even if the author’s premise and research is sloppy (as some have called it) it’s still worth thinking about. When was the last time you got together for dinner with friends? How regularly is it? Do you schedule this time? How social are you offline?

“How many Social Media Sites do you use online?” results:
1-3 sites 40.0%
4-7 sites 51.0%
8+ sites 9.0%

Some responses:
Primary interplay revolves around my typepad blog (justcrim.typepad.com), facebook account, del.icio.us/brianrwuci sites, and google reader feeds/sharing

Although I’m an Early Adopter (MOOS since 1995, LiveJournal since 2000, my offline life is too full for too much time spent online

I have my own blog, I blog for the library, I have a facebook account, a flickr account, i occasional login to Askville.com, I belong to three wikis including the Peace Corps Wiki

LJ, diaryland, flickr, twitter, ravelry, librarything, facebook, myspace, last.fm

Don’t Forget
oh! and don’t forget to share your feeds http://www.google.com/reader/shared/00291156310638200102
Feel free to share where you go for info and how you share it with your friends (those online ones too.) You will most likely expose someone to a tool, trick or source they didn’t know about.

Hmm, maybe I should have titled this post: “Sharing is caring?”

TTW Contributor: Lee LeBlanc

You answered, Why am I a librarian (or insert your favorite information professional title here)? Thank you for a set of fun responses. Why I did I open the question to all information professionals? There are a lot of unique roles in libraries. There are a bunch of names for those roles within libraries. Some people remind us to not take titles too seriously. Some are for reals. Still need more proof?

Next, I adhere to the be nice rule. Yes, I do not think we need people who are bullies -in their professional or personal lives. We need less sardonic, mendacious, apathetic, dejected and mean-spirited people in our profession. I still included those comments though.

Which reminds me of the time I got stabbed by a pen knife standing up to a bully. I stood there staring him in the eyes, unflinching. Then, he ran off scared. You are only as weak as you believe you are. Don’t let those comments dissuade. Fight the good fight. Say fair, good things about people you know; ignore the rest. They’re not worth your time. Snarky is so web.0.

“to be nobody but yourself in a world doing its best to make you everybody else is the hardest battle any human can ever fight and never stop fighting.”
-e.e. cummings

———————–

 

Your responses below

 

———————–

1. I prefer to call myself an “Information manager” because that’s what I do all the time: manage information and because I do not work in a Library. I like helping other people find what they’re looking for and design new ways of makes things more findable.

2. It’s an easy job

3. It combines my love of people with my love of the hunt (for information!)

4. I needed a job with a salary.

5. It seemed like a career in librarianship would give me a lot of options. At the time, I didn’t know where I wanted to live….My first job was as “Acquisitions Specialist” for a federal government contractor. About 2 years later, I was an “Internet Librarian.” Then I was a “Internet Terminology Librarian.”

6. I wanted a career with no stress. Being a librarian is totally stress-free. I’m a career-changer. I came from the corporate world. The library world <i>really is</i> stress-free compared to the “real world.”

7. I Need

8. See #2. [Respondent means the second question I asked. Post coming soon.]

9. I like the work, I find people’s questions interesting, and it’s different every day, which suits my attention span.

10. I wanted to be a professor but I liked too many subjects to pick just one. As a librarian you can study whatever you want.

11. Don’t know why you are a librarian. Let’s speculate: - you’re a huddled mass yearning to breathe free! - you lost a round of beer pong and the loser had to go to library school! - you won your library degree as a Publishers Clearing House.consolation prize!

12. I am an information wonk and I like to help people find all sorts of information.

13. I like to help people. My Dad is a Social Worker for the blind and my Mom is a retired Registered Nurse.

14. I am a librarian because I er ah … darn it I don’t know. It seemed like a good job at the time and I don’t think I’d like anything else quite as much. I feel like I help bring order to the universe.

15. Because I love the job. I love helping people find information, I love books, knowledge and libraries in general. I adore the fact that I can spend hundred’s of dollars on books for the library that people will enjoy reading. I enjoy working with children, sharing books, doing programs, helping with homework and thus chose to become a children’s librarian.

16. Schooling harms children by forcing them to deny their life’s passions, teaching them that learning has discrete end-points (final exams, graduations, etc.), and — worst of all making them intellectually dependent on expert teachers. I became a librarian to help children become more intellectually independent, to foster a love of self-directed learning.

17. Computers and books are fun. Getting paid decently is good. Sucky pay rules out chain book stores, but allows for librarian jobs.

18. In the end I had to give in to genetics. I’m third generation.

19. Gives me a chance to help people, make a little ey, and keep learning stuff too.

20. I love research. I like teaching people and I like books. What else was I going to do?

21. Because I like the work, parts of it anyway, and the pay is good. There are times I actually don’t mind helping people. Since I work in a college library I feel a little bit like I’m “doing some good” as well.

22. It’s an honorable career that suits my skills and talents and it pays decently. Plus I get to work with books.

23. I am a librarian because I am a people-person and a dilettante. I’m a smart person who couldn’t settle into one discipline.

24. I have my MLS and need to recoup my investment so I can become something else. I entered the field as an idealist.

25. The thrill of the hunt.

26. It presented itself as the best way to earn a living at the point that I finished an MA in my chosen field and needed to help support my student husband.

27. - couldn’t think of a better fit for my skills, interests, and previous work experience - wanted a job with continuous challenges (ie: you never know when the person approaching the desk is going to ask you a tough reference question), and variety of duties - I like people, and I like helping them - it’s not physically demanding.

28. I got the degree so what else am I going to do, huh?

29. I like to read, to learn and to discover. I like helping people.

30. I believe access to information is one of the most important things nowadays. And I think there’s no other professional who cares more about how the user will access and use this information than librarians.

31. I enjoy helping people, organizing things, and being able to use my liberal arts background. I don’t have to work with food or business people; I enjoy being at an academic institution.

32. Good question.

33. I like helping people and some of the other traditional roles (doctor, lawyer, accountant) didn’t seem as good a fit.

34. This is a “straight” answer. I wanted to teach (and coach sports) outside the context of the classroom, and a high school library seemed like the best way to do that. After early experiences in high school libraries, I was fortunate that the public library job opened in the low population rural area where I wanted to live. Getting to share with people of all ages and interests over the last 33+ years has been exceptionally rewarding … except for the pay and benefits.

35. I am a librarian for a lot of reasons. Mainly, I enjoy helping people. But I also like earning my living doing something that that helps further knowledge, that supports education and openness and equality, and that doesn’t exist solely to make rich people or corporations richer. I am a librarian in an academic library because I believe that access to higher education can change a person’s life for the better and because I enjoy being part of a collegial and inquisitive environment. I am a library manager because I want to inspire at least one person as I have been inspired and create opportunities for growth and learning for my staff as opportunities have been created for me, and because I want to prove that a woman can excel in leadership positions traditionally dominated by men.

36. So I can participate in useless pseudo-academic nonsense like this survey.

37. Because some mean, public “librarian” would not help me find information when I really needed help.

38. I am a librarian because I have this unquenchable thirst for finding information. Also, I like to work with books and other reading materials. Indeed, my intent was to stay in academics for a lifetime by working as an academic librarian. After earning other post-secondary degrees that could never guarantee any job whatsoever, I decided to earn a Master of Library Science (MLS) degree for practical work skills. As for my career prospects, they are rather slim because I compete with other librarians for a limited number of librarian jobs. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no such thing as a “librarian shortage” whatsoever!

39. because I get to tell stories to 4 year-olds, 84 year-olds and everyone in between……… and get paid for it!

40. I went to the careers office at my undergrad school less than 2 years in. I talked with someone there about what I could do and what I wanted to do, and she suggested the possibility of being a librarian. I had never thought about it before, but it really seemed like the obvious thing for me to do. Throughout most of my life I’ve been better and using libraries than other people my age and I also love using them.

41. Librarianship was just a perfect fit for me. I was told by several teachers and professors that I should go into teaching, but I didn’t have a passion for it like I did for libraries. Now I work in a college library and get to collaborate with the professors and teach the odd online research skills course.

42. Because it pays slightly better than my other job options, and has better hours.

43. It allows me to work with information and also help people access and understand information. In my case, the information is local history and preserving history.

44. i love books and reading.

45. Because I ENJOY interacting with library staff (I’m in a consortia that offers services to libraries. Have been in consortia work for 24+ years). [Email me.]

46. Because there is no one other field where u can be a book lover, gamer, techie, geek, and love your job.

47. I am a librarian because I get to help people (I am an academic/instruction librarian), play with technology, work with very nice people AND, best of all, I do not have to sell one thing to make a living…

48. The usual — loves books & libraries.

49. Public librarianship manages to link up all the things I like to do with the things I believe I ought to do. It allows me to combine my feeling of responsibility for my community and/or craving for social justice with my liking of books and technology.

50. I’ve always been a Librarian - it was my favorite game as a kid; better than school or store or house.

51. Because no other profession would have me. Also, I am obsessive and picky.

52. For the money.

53. At first it was a job at a college, now it is part of my life mission to help others get a college education.

54. I seem to have an affinity for finding things, although I am not very organized….

55. To make sure people find the information they need.

56. Because I wanted to be one, I like the work.

57. I like solving problems and thought I could do so at the reference desk.

58. I love finding answers, people and books!

59. I got an undergraduate degree that would have required a Ph.D. to do anything with. I picked librarianship because it was a “safe” choice (short, easy degree program; could complete via distance education), and I didn’t know what else to do.

60. I enjoy working with people, I like to read, and I love discovering new information.

61. I love books, and I love working with kids. It’s perfect.

62. What other job offers such variety of work?

63. Because I really believe in libraries. I believe libraries are about the last institutions in the world to offer free education for anyone who wants to learn.

64. It was was that or a career as an archaeologist. And when I discovered that being an archaeologist wouldn’t include searching for treasures like Indiana Jones (yes I was very young) I decided searching for information would be the best choice. The proximity to all the books was an added bonus.

65. Because I love connections. I connect people with information, people with people, people with answers, people with books.

66. I enjoy helping people, but can’t stand blood, so I couldn’t be a doctor or nurse. After working in some bookstores, I discovered that I like helping people find information (I am a confirmed bibliophile), so I went to library school.

67. When I was in high school, the librarians were amongst the most influential staff when it come to fostering a love of reading, and appreciating literature. Once I graduated from my undergraduate humanities degree, it seemed like the obvious choice, where I’d be able to share this knowledge with other people who are just as passionate about books and reading.

68. Because I matter (make a significant positive difference) to the people who ask me for help or who accept my freely offered help.

69. I like the ability to work independently, and I like the diversity of projects I can undertake. I also like to help people.

70. because I love to get people to information, organize everything, and break barriers at any given opportunity.

71. Because I have learned one of my best strengths is as an intermediary and facilitator of information and people.

72. For the variety of questions I am able to answer at the reference desk and the variety of things I get to work on (collection development, programming, etc.,).

73. It provides an intersection of thinking and using my intuition that I find satisfying. It’s about the intersection of people and systems, and you really have to become familiar with both to do the job.

74. I chose to become a librarian, because I wanted to help others engage with information and encourage a passion it. I also had a love of knowledge and research and wanted to find an occupation that allowed me to pursue this daily.

75. h.

76. I’m very nosy and want to know it all. And want to know what others want to know.

77. it’s a combination of a love for learning and helping people…and fate..haha!

78. It is the best job in the world. I get to learn something new every day and help others to find the information they are looking for. I like meeting new people and doing different things. I love that everyday there are always new things happening at work.

79. I really like helping people find information.

80. I am a librarian because I love research and learning, and as such I love helping other people find interesting and useful information on a daily basis. That and of course I am a self-professed bibliophile.

81. I like to handle data and help people find data.

82. Because I love what I do and I love going to work every day (and I’m pretty good at it). I find new challenges & opportunities each day, giving me the variety I want from my work environment (never a dull moment).

83. Because it allows me to do three things I love: help people, explore new things, find solutions to problems.

84. Because I recognized that libraries were in a time of exciting change. I wanted to be a part of it - especially the technological change.

85. i thought i would be an academic and then realized i would be miserable. i slouched around in lame jobs for a couple of years and then decided that librarianship would keep me close to academia. I was right!

86. I love helping people and I love knowledge– I have to wonder if I would like this profession as much as I do know if I’d been been 20 in 1950, before we had such instant access to information. I am really not a fan of those old green books.

87. Because I don’t always deal with huge amounts of stress very well, and the audition to audition life of a musical theatre performer would have obviously not been a good fit. So - I needed to get a degree in something that would actually get me a steady income at my day job (vocal performance degrees aren’t really good for anything) Music librarianship sounded interesting, and librarianship in general was surprisingly appealing to my personality.

88. I like finding things and helping people.

89. I like libraries. I have OCD, so I like things to be in order. I like helping people. It seems like a stress-free job, and pays fairly well. It is something I can do as a second career, and I can probably choose my location.

90. I love books and I wanted to help people.

91. Because it paid 3 times what I was making before I went to library school.

92. I worked for ten years in the admissions office of a psychiatric hospital. I decided I wanted to work someplace that people WANTED to be.

93. Because those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Because I do love a cracking good story and like to make sure others like me can find them. Because I like helping people without needing to know their history or their business.

94. Because I think making information available to all, no matter who you are, what you look like, how much money you make (if any), is important and a good thing to do.

95. Essentially I am a librarian because I have a strong love of books. But that’s not all. I am a librarian because I like finding things and helping people find things. That’s my favorite part of the job. The books are an added bonus. I love finding difficult information for patrons and helping them figure out where to find information.

96. I like helping people.

97. I have nearly insatiable curiosity about almost all things. This really lends itself to reference work and reader’s advisory.

98. Helping myself and others make a clearer sense of information in the world.

99. After all this time…mainly inertia.

100. h.

TTW Contributor: Lee LeBlanc

We’re not going to geek out here but we need to talk about:
–Documents,
–Virtualizing XP,
–Restorable/Disposable Computing,
–andLinux
Read on and discover today’s mystery word. Spolier alert: this is a choose-your-own mystery word adventure.

–Documents
Here we beg the document engineering question. Do most people need all the features that Microsoft Word offers? Most users think they need to “buy” software to be able to effectively design their documents. This is highly unlikely. We know most patrons do not know about free or open source software. Most people would be fine typing their paper in something as simple as Notepad or a free Word Processor like AbiWord. AbiWord has most of the features you need. If our patrons truly need to do advance document engineering, Word may or may not be the best candidate.

As for writing the paper, could we suggest to our users that 2-steps make a better writing process? First: pure, simple, hacking, away at the keyboard to produce their work of literary greatness. In Microsoft Word, there are far too many distractions to take you away from the task of writing. I’m sure you’ve played the Font Game, (Hmmmm, Times New Roman is starting to look dated…What about Verdana? Oh too modern). Possibly you have tweaked and re-tweaked your headers, footers and page numbering too? I usually do this when my forehead starts bleeding from trying to think of that elusive word while re-writing and re-writing and re-writing. Or maybe that’s just me.

Next, the intrepid writer can port their new literary work to a piece of software that will allow them to create a document with formal page margins, headers and footers, a cover page, image, sections, and tables. (Most email systems can be thought of as the first step in document creation too. Unless you’re constantly checking your email.) Users also seem to not know that you don’t need MS Office. Those patrons, unless doing very serious document formatting, can use a free word processing software to engineer the final copy.

Here’s the “converting a MS Office 2007 document” part for our user who gets home and can’t open the latest greatest file from Microsoft. For 2007, Microsoft changed file formats. Documents get an x tacked on now -actually it’s Microsoft’s version of XML. You get a strange look when you tell people they don’t need to buy the newest edition of Microsoft Office 2007 to open any of the new Office file formats. If they have a version of Office from 97-2003, there are no worries. They usually don’t believe me so I give them the quote below and this link in an email:

“By installing the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able to open, edit, and save files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007…“

Also, it’s not a bad idea to inform your users to keep a copy of, say, their resume as a plain text file. Again, locking your most precious documents up in proprietary formats is not the wisest move. What if you can’t afford to buy the newest software that will open those MS file formats? That’s speaking from experience. I’m sure you don’t do that. Also, it’s far less likely over time and multiple saves, that a simple text file will become corrupted. Again, the idea is to separate content from presentation while not getting crazy with it. Obviously your PowerPoint presentation should not be separated into images and a text file. Or should it? As long as you have an internet connection you’d have your presentation with Slidy. Some folks also use flickr.com.

–Virtualize XP
Getting used to playing with Microsoft Virtual PC will do two things for you. (Sorry, I know I am ignoring Macs here; forgive me.)
1. If you learn how to do a Microsoft Windows XP installation you will feel more empowered over your technology and will help yourself demystify some of what IT actually does. How so you say? The great thing about working on a virtual machine, as opposed to your own actual PC, is that you can break it with no care -recklessly. You just delete the virtual drive and start over.
2. Having a Virtual Machine on your own PC allows you to:
a.) test software you think you may need,
b.) test software patrons want you to install
c.) keep your PC “clean and secure” by not accelerating rot on windows. There are few others you can use like VMware but you have to use their virtual machine player and are limited to the VM builds they offer -unless you have the workstation edition to create your own virtual machines.

–Restorable/Disposable Computing
Imagine having disposable XP computing instances? Each time you reboot you have a new Windows installation. There are several programs you can use to secure your personal computer or the work computers you oversee. Microsoft SteadyState is not bad. Returnnil gives you controls to return your system to a pristine state. There are others and it can get quite costly. The free stuff holds its own though. Why would you do this? Public computers should be for public use. These kinds of controls give a user complete access to their PC. Maybe they need to install some software to do their taxes. Let them. Then reboot the computer and it’s back to your baseline image.

–andLinux
Finally, you’ve heard of Linux but don’t want to go through the trouble of installing it. With andLinux you can explore Linux and use thousands of Linux applications -from within Windows XP. Get a taste of Linux without getting all geeked out.

I guess we did just geek out. I’m choosing stenographic as my mystery word for today.

TTW Contributor: Lee LeBlanc

Have you ever walked into a door you thought was open? I can’t tell you how many screen doors I’ve walked through living in Florida. Ever wonder what the heck you are running into where you work? Ever thought about what Resistance is? Ever felt like there was a force preventing you from moving in a direction you want to go? Do libraries have a special kind of Resistance?

Creativity can be described as the right kind of Resistance: a tensioned state that doesn’t suppress your ability to think or act and on the other end isn’t vapidly easy. Creative tension is a state where you re-mix tools, abilities, skills, and solutions in new ways. Resistance fears this state. It doesn’t want you to know this. Knowing what kind of Resistance you face, naming the nameless, allows you to re-claim energy and re-direct it.

I also feel talking openly about failures will create a culture of (knowledgeable) risk takers. Success and failure are far more intimate friends than they let on. Sure: out on the playground they look like enemies. Always one Winner and one Loser right? Yet for how long do successes last? How fast have you recovered from some failure? Some say contentment is the highest goal. That’s awfully philosophical for a Monday -but I am a closet existentialist.

Check the book out: http://tinyurl.com/2n7fe

TTW Contributor- Lee LeBlanc

Take the short answer survey. It’s merely three questions.

Also, do you as new librarian, (or new information professional), care to say why you got into the profession when parts of the world see libraries and librarians as relics from an era-gone-by?

You probably have meme-fatigued. That “geez, this question is turning up everywhere!” It’s a good one though. We can strengthen our resolve on what we believe by answering questions like this. How so? 1) Sharpen our own minds about what is important to us. 2) Strengthen solid ideas about our chosen profession by sharing our best thoughts. Mr. Shaw said this quite succinctly.

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”—George Bernard Shaw

If you can’t wait a few weeks for the responses to collect, feel free to comment here or put yours up on your blog. Jump to the survey now. We accept all forms of entry: Haiku, riddle, 140-character entry and so on…

TTW Contributor- Lee LeBlanc




“Assuming they acquire attractive data sources, CK-12’s next challenge will be spreading the word. The education system is not quick to adopt new technologies. I think that finding teachers able to use Internet-born text books will be their biggest challenge. They will have to communicate outside the tech channels that will give them initial buzz.”

While the focus is K-12, I have firsthand experience at the beginning of every semester helping college students find their text books. We rarely have them. Way too expensive. Of course there are students who are just trying to avoid paying for those text books but there is another type of student. I’ve known students who struggle to pay for their text books. College text book costs are rising ever higher. Could there be a more cost effective way?

Maybe publishers are slow to offer electronic texts because they think students will just beat any DRM the publisher can install. I know students know who scan their entire text books. One student buys one of the Xnumber of required books and then they all trade scans. (Yes, I know what your thinking about the legality of that action). But, what if publishers offered electronic versions at lower costs than the outrageous prices on the 52nd edition of Introduction to Human Sexuality? Research in other areas like MP3 sales and pay-per-articles prove that people will pay a fair amount for reasonably priced products. But is twice the rate of inflation fair? (Here’s the report via pdfmenot.com). I wonder about the hidden cost this drive for profit Capitalism extracts from all of us -mostly unknowingly.

It’s like going to Canada for prescription drugs: go overseas and you can get your text books for half the cost. Boo that. If there are any (LIS) students/Professors out there want to share thoughts on text book costs -feel free. Just be careful for a backlash if you feel those prices are justified.

TTW Contributor- Lee LeBlanc

Michael, who teams blogs over at, http://infodoodads.com/ turned in a blazing time of 14 seconds for finding that reference article. (There was also a respectable 20 seconding showing which was faster than me). I then “cyber stalked” Mike over on Flickr Next we had a few exchanges that led to the conversation on microblogging. I hear a lot of: “….[groans]…not another 2.0 thingy!’ Michael didn’t do that mind you. Yet, what could that reaction be about?

Lee: ive found microblogging is best, at least 2 me, when im txting out doing somthin. i txt an update 2 my friends. i txt my brother regularly. &i kno my brother txts with his wife all the time -she’s in the Philippines right now. add my disjointed twitter vignettes to this & then I also interact with those folks. but twitter could work for library microblogging too. how? make the jump here or read on.

Mike: Hmmmm. Definitely worth thinking about. I suppose I do a version of microblogging–I e-mail myself reminders from my cell phone, everything from grocery list items to book authors/titles to movies someone tells me about. It could all very well be twittered.

“How do I experiment with new stuff’?
And yes, I wrote that like I would on my cell phone for the most part. I take certain liberties when I text. Using Twitter is a way of thinking about technology -for me. “How do I experiment with new stuff’?” Experimenting with new technologies to see how I can connect to more people in my life -rather than looking at what it will do for me alone helps me move my mind in directions it would not normally go. It’s funny how many of my friends microblog (SMS-ing me all the time) and don’t realize it. So, a lot of times you’ll see a question turn up in Twitter that I asked my friends. Feel free to answer. I try to be somewhat inspiration like, “So, wut up RockStar! Tell me how you did/how ya do this weekend.” Friends who don’t really email me, or maintain an online presence of any kind, or generally don’t email that much, text me back! alot!

So, I use txting to stay in touch with certain friends and family (and patrons?) who text AND then share a bit of my txting with the Twitter community -shall the two ever meet? Maybe. Maybe not. So, I’ve connected two different sets of folks through Twitter. What’s the lesson? Different strokes, different folks. Like Lauren, I also see Twitter as bridging the Internet & phone (not everyone has an 16gb iPhone :). Lauren goes on to list bunches of other great reasons about what Twitter can become for you if you let it.

“How does your library experiment with new stuff’?”
What makes the new technologies, social apps, and whatever else seem pointless really lies in how we view those tools. What if we evaluate things not for ourselves but for others? (I’m planting a seed here for my future post on what we need in the library to be personally successful & it has very little to do with technology). Unless I’m meditating, I don’t like to stare at a blank wall -even then I sometimes debate myself over this wall gazing. Yet if we turn around from what were used to looking at, there could entire field of opportunities worth checking out. Maybe we need to think about how patrons use Twitter to really find the gold? Do you know any of your patrons using Twitter? Above all else, play. I’m going back to my corner to stare at my wall for a bit but I’ll meet you on playground for a game of Tag.

TTW Contributor- Lee LeBlanc

Actually, it’s just a tease while I hammer out the rest of the multimedia portion for the Reference Desk post. Pulling all this multimedia together takes time. There’s even an article about it here. “In spite of the time, frustration, and lack of support, creating the screencast was a good idea. I’m glad I did it. But in the future, I’ll also be more cautious about judging others’ use of media—because it is harder than it looks.” But, can you find the article the screenshot above comes from? We should probably measure your attempt in seconds. Honor system here. Ready…Set…Answer.

TTW Contributor- Lee LeBlanc

“…you can walk up to the bored looking person behind the desk known as the reference librarian and ask for a brief tutorial on how to use the journals…”

Maybe it is time to re-think reference. Katz did say the reference desk has been blown apart and I hear from many librarians he did write the book on Reference.

In this thread, there’s also some very interesting talk about the value of a library/ value of library services to students. The perceptions/ misperceptions are very interesting.

TTW Contributor- Lee LeBlanc

“Ars spoke with Steven Lareau, the IT chair for Clemson’s student advisory council. According to Lareau, Clemson previously “had an awful web-based e-mail system” (SquirrelMail). Lareau says that they compared Microsoft’s Outlook/Exchange combo with Gmail, and Gmail came out on top.”

When I see students frustratingly loose USB drives with their term papers, have to use multiple online systems like BlackBoard or another CMS, and a University email system all which typically do not facilitate communication for group assignments resulting in rounds of emailed documents where there are no IM clients to connect with fellow students in their classes who all use some kind of online presence like MySpace or FaceBook to keep up on their social lives and talk about their classes, I come to completely understand those students’ view of an overly-distant-administrative-technological bureaucracy that seems to clearly not be paying attention to who is really using the technology. Several students where I’m getting my masters have already signed up for Google Apps Team Edition. I don’t doubt the time will be here soon when we have a critical mass of students avoiding closed, stale, clunky, university email and comfortably collaborating online.

TTW Contributor: Lee LeBlanc

An interesting calculator a library in Florida adapted from a Maine library system. Does it cover the right services you want to pay for? What would you add? What would you take away? Do you provide you users with an annual report? How do advertise the good stuff?

TTW Contributor: Lee LeBlanc

Some pretty neat ones.

I quickly posted on January 29th, “What are they doing right?” It was about the MCCL homepage. Which led to some lively comments. Some liked it. Some pointed to areas that needed improvement. Lisa, the web designer for the MCCL site responded about the design. Then something neat happened, one of the commentors, Brad, made a mock-up of the site as he saw it. Whether you agree with the new mock-up or the original site the larger point is: you’ve just seen how being transparent, being willing to do work and being willing to share ideas can lead in entirely new directions. Let’s not forget the speed at which this was done. It doesn’t take forever to get feedback on any kind of design you want to implement. Feedback is part of your project, right?

Brad wanted to expand his thoughts. Maybe Lisa will look at those ideas and use some. Maybe she won’t. But, at the very least some fertile web design conversation has happened. Even if only for me. Imagine if this was a larger project. Can we see how allowing people to comment & share generates new and interesting results? Are these lessons we can use within our own libraries? How much untapped talent could we harness by forming collectives for work on databases, OPACs, or websites? Share your work with your colleges. It makes you stronger.

I’m very impressed by both web pages. I’m impressed by everyone who slowed down to think about what they liked or didn’t like about library homepages. Furthermore, I’m impressed by the large amount of talent in the information landscape. Sometimes you can feel like a target, completely overlooked, or entirely mis-understood online, so I thank Brad and Lisa for engaging in a great dialog and helping other professionals think about what works, what doesn’t and why.

Checkout the original and the mock-up.

-TTW Contributor: Lee LeBlanc.

Librarians, Library Staff, and Information Professionals:

How many social sites are you using? Take the survey.

The social web browser: Flock is available for Mac, Linux, and Windows. This browser is integrated with a rich feature set. From Blogger to Flickr to Xanga, if you’re using any Social Media sites personally or for work it may be worth your time to check out Flock. The Flock folks have geared this browser towards saving steps and streamlining your online life.

1. Use the website as a tool to feature resources and not visually overload the user.

2. Use purposeful design cues to help user navigate the site and not force the user to decipher what is important on the homepage.

3. Use the homepage as a starting point and do not try to put everything on the homepage.

4. Use descriptive bold headings to focus your attention and -not library-ese. Actually, this sums up library-ese.

Part.1 leads into Part.2 which is coming in a few weeks. Producing a video is not easy (at least for me it wasn’t.) More to come on this “walking the talk” tech thing in Part.2. Right now, we’re just going to talk about ideas. Let’s start with a persona to explore: free and open source software, texting, internet-enabled devices, surprising facts, and strategy. What do we see with all this? Here’s an experimental persona to tie the ideas together. We’re not concerned with what’s possible but with what’s not possible and then how to get there.

 

———

Persona
…Driving down I-95, Jennimi ticks off the items on her to-do list. Suddenly, Jennimi a regular library user, gets a text message: “Your book is on hold.” Jennimi also notes there is a question: “Will you physically come to the library yourself to get the book”

No leaves her alone.

Yes gets a google map mash-up that overlays the library collection with a location map. She can not only drive to the library but walk right to where books are placed on hold. Storing that information while down shifting gears, Jennimi gets off the highway and decides to get that book -and maybe others. At the library, Jennimi snaps, with her iPhone, a picture of the section of books she wants to read about further.

Since the library has a wireless network, the image posts seamlessly to her flickr account. A friend sees this and comments on her flickr page: “Hey I posted a review & my notes into the library’s OPAC. Great book! Also get American Born Chinese.” All possible because the patron side can be tagged, wiki-ed.

OH NO! Jennimi gets slightly lost in the stacks! So rather than getting frustrated by walking all the way down stairs, she remembers the OPAC has IM. In a few lines of an IM chat, Jennimi gets directions to the section and is lost no more. Additionally, since Jennimi opted-in to the ILS system and allowed an API to aggregate selected information behaviors, she gets sent an email asking:

–found what you need?
–want more information sources on your subject?
–would you like to get news about upcoming Library talks by professional authors?
Jennimi definitely feels technology aided her learning today in a completely untethered way. She completely felt like the library helped guide her information experience. Having a good feeling about the library and how wonderfully integrated the services are in her life, Jennimi voted Yes! on proposition 121 to increase library funding for technology.

———

Breaking down this persona, here’s just some segments built in but not technically explicit.

Free
How can we combine the best of what’s free and open? How can we leverage many libraries’ buying power? What about consortium that address different library needs rather than consortium based on geography? Can you imagine forming a consortium to get done something specific like a new open source ILS ? Liblime is paying attention to this. Could larger, more massive library vendors take note? Among the innovations LibLime are at work on:
–IM in the catalog
– Using APIs (If you’ve heard Michael talk, you know he talks about this being a big & rising trend.)
–Flexible, fast implementation of technology services via partnerships
(note: I don’t work for Liblime but I like what they do.)

 

Text
Are you txting?
Watch texting rise this year as a powerful communication method. Check out Michael’s pic about txting from Mall of America. Around the world: rice farmers in the Philippines get information from a text center. Texts are an easy way to do a soft-push, opt-in, specific focus of information. We’ll see txting rise a service for various organizations. Could you text your library hours when they change on holidays? Could you text users the morning books are due, before they leave their house? Could you announce special events via a txt’d url? Are you using Elf?

 

Device
What device will become “the device” our users prefer?
Could it be the iPhone? Paper-thin laptops? Devices that project a air-light-display? One thing is absolutely sure: computing/information technology moves towards ubiquity. Which may bring to out into the open things that we didn’t want to see but need to change.

 

Surprise
Would it be a big surprise to learn that most students believe that technology improves their learning ? This could be true for all types of library users. How will we stumble on & put to use the emerging technologies and social networks that will hook students/parents/users? “…as students become more and more connected to each other through various online mediums, they’re also becoming more untethered, with laptops and smart phones keeping them physically apart. As a result, the “emerging Web 2.0 paradigm” of “immerse environments” and dynamic information promise (or threaten?) to upend traditional pedagogues and even the way students learn, the authors conclude.”

 

Strategy
Do most >insert your kind of user here< have a strategy for managing their information information? Should they have to manage information? If you had to teach students how to manage large, interconnected sets of information so that precision and recall were augmented, what personal strategies would you share?
–a system of personal appointment planning?
–a way to organize files, paper and electronic?
–a personal metadata system for naming files?
–an information processing system
–project management processes?
Could you teach a student/researcher/patron project management in tiny pieces by using what they are searching for rather than formal instructional classes not tied to their interests?

 

So
Using information-enabled devices will give us access to more powerful information systems. Our information seeking behaviors will come to be shaped not only by the information we seek but the devices (hardware and software), and access channels (internet, txt), that we seek information through. The computer will only be one of these devices. The OPAC will only be one way to interact with our users. Open source software will become ripe and blossom. The website as a wayfinding point for services, information, or experiences is just starting to be tapped. Making our systems a forgiving-process, a guiding-process, a helping-process, an interactive-process, an organizing process, and a fun-process creates unique experiences for our users.

 

This is the information-experience economy. Telecommuters could live anywhere they want. Most live in large cities. Why? Because they (on average) use technology to increase their social interaction. Most aren’t recluses living on top of a mountain (while I realize that does not sound bad to some of us -perhaps all of us at some point). Think about the different ways you may increase your socializing: via phone calls, txting, flickring , tagging, emailing… How do we first say yes and then figure out how to do all this? Practice. Lots of practice. Lots of play. Go get into your sandbox. Have fun today. If play wasn’t so important, we wouldn’t be playing around with new technologies as “adults.”

NOTE: Jennimi would never get lost -anywhere.

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